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Average: 4.5 (474 ratings)
- Date Released: February 25, 1997
- Genre: Alternative/Punk
- Style: Indie Rock
- Label: Kill Rock Stars / Touch and Go
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We Say...
For a tiny moment it seemed that Elliott Smith was going to be the "new Dylan" of Generation X; his exquisite balladry so perfectly captured the wistful dance with hope and hopelessness enacted by the shadow children of the Baby Boom. But it wasn't to be, not only because of Smith's struggles with depression (which led him to suicide in 2003), but because Smith's moment called for something more subtle. Hear it on this exquisite disc, a homemade charm bracelet strung with anger and hope and lovely broken dreams. Smith was a lo-fi pop perfectionist — his melodies and simple song structures aimed to match the Platonic ideal of his heroes, the Beatles, but his arrangements were raw as punk, as was his fragile tenor. In love songs like "Between the Bars" and tales of cosmic disappointment like "Ballad of Big Nothing," Smith grasped the beating heart of that old ennui, the dark side of the indie rock spirit.
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They Say...
Elliott Smith's third album sees his one-man show getting a little more ambitious. While he still plays all the instruments himself, he plays more of them. Several of the songs mimic the melody mastery of pop bands from 1960s. The most alluring numbers, however, are still his quietly melancholy acoustic ones. While the full-band songs are catchy and smart, Smith's recording equipment isn't quite up to the standards set by the Beatles and the Beach Boys. The humbler arrangements are better suited to the sparse equipment. "Between the Bars," for example, plays Smith's strengths perfectly. He sings, in his endearingly limited whisper, of late-night drinking and introspection, and his subdued strumming creates a minor-key mood befitting the mysteries of self. "Angeles" is equally ethereal -- Smith's acoustic fingerpicking spins out notes which briskly move around a single atmospheric keyboard chord, like aural minnows swimming toward a solitary light at the surface of the water. The lyrics are a darkly biting rejection of the hypercapitalist dream machinery of Los Angeles (it would make a great theme song for Smith's label, Kill Rock Stars). Ironically, "Angeles" was included on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, which won Smith the acclaim of Hollywood's biggest, brightest, and best connected voting body, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Smith's stock in L.A. soared after he took his bow at the Oscars with Celine Dion and Trisha Yearwood. It might have been more interesting had he sung "Angeles."
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You Say...
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| 01. |  |
Speed Trials |
3:01 |  |
| 02. | |
Alameda |
3:43 | |
| 03. | |
Ballad Of Big Nothing |
2:48 | |
| 04. | |
Between The Bars |
2:21 | |
| 05. | |
Pictures Of Me |
3:47 | |
| 06. | |
No Name No. 5 |
3:43 | |
| 07. | |
Rose parade |
3:28 | |
| 08. | |
Punch And Judy |
2:25 | |
| 09. | |
Angeles |
2:56 | |
| 10. | |
Cupid's Trick |
3:04 | |
| 11. | |
2:45 AM |
3:19 | |
| 12. | |
Say Yes |
2:19 | |
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Credits
- Tom Rothrock - Mixing // Rob Schnapf - Mixing // Elliott Smith - Main Performer // Elliott Smith - Mixing // Neil Gust - Artwork // Neil Gust - Layout Design // Larry Crane - Engineer // Debbie Pastor - Photography // Debbie Pastor - Cover Photo // Joanna Bolme - Mixing // Joanna Bolme - Photography
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